Lucas Robertson
The UW Sierra Club, a grassroots environmental organization, organized a rally march in protest of the current standards of energy renewal and waste management protocols on Tuesday.
The group also conducted a series of speeches where environmental professionals from UW and representatives for the Sierra Club informed their audience on current statistics and problem solving endeavors.
With the Paris Climate Summit underway, many grassroots and green energy groups from around the country are rallying support for actions that will slow or eventually halt man-made global climate change. It is the understanding of these organizations and their followers that unless drastic changes are made to the amount of carbon released into earth’s atmosphere the planet may be heading toward a place of no return, which could have devastating effects on humanities survival.
“There have been over 2,300 events in over 175 countries with over 785,000 people out this past weekend and this last week expressing their concern,” Martha Martizes del Rio, organizing representative of the Sierra Club, said. “It’s a big subject.”
The event was hosted in the Amy Adams Stevens Center, attached to the Ivinson Mansion, and included pamphlets and displays from a variety of Wyoming based clean energy support groups, including Citizens Climate Lobby and Wyoming LTFR Energy Alliance.
Many people from around the community attended, including Laramie residents, UW students and WyoTech students.
“Climate change is a human problem,” Sarah Strauss, professor of cultural anthropology, said. ”We’re awaiting a decision now by the world’s governments to make a new binding agreement – we haven’t managed to do that so far. The goal is to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius by 2100 – by the end of the century.”
The prevention of further warming of the planet by the release of carbon into the atmosphere is the primary issue most of the save the planet groups are promoting.
“What does that number mean? Why does it matter?” Strauss said. “If we go up another four degrees, it’s not a good picture – wetter becomes wetter, dryer becomes dryer, water scarcity becomes a real problem.”
There are some other issues rooted more so in the individual’s lifestyle, as the Sierra Club discussed efforts to locally aid the dying planet.
“There are many very simple things we can do that don’t cost anything,” Dr. Bill Langrit, professor and chair of the UW Geography Program, said. “We can take our bicycles to work, our local government can make it safer to walk places and ride our bicycles.”
The Sierra Club member said this is not just an issue of melting ice caps or less trees, the abuse of fossil fuels in regions such as the Middle East has led to a power struggle between world governments and extremist terrorist groups, causing civilians to fall victim to wars.
“The important thing is to continue the conversation, have conversations with your families, your neighbors, your co-workers, your legislators, you teachers, you students, your friends,” Strauss said. “Every conversation matters, and every step builds support for the next.”
